A radio network and/or a method of this type are known from DE 199 46 540 A1.
In many fields, like for instance in industry, science and medicine, self-organizing radio networks and networks without infrastructure, so-called ad-hoc networks, are used increasingly. A known example of a network of this type is the wireless local area network (WLAN) according to the IEEE 802.11 standard. Radio links can be established here at any point between devices (stations), without being dependent upon fixedly installed base stations or a defined radio network design. Links from a station to a target station can be realized in a plurality of possible ways either directly or by means of relay stations. A limited frequency range with a predetermined number of frequency channels is available for the communication, of which only a small number can in turn be used at the same time without any overlap.
To prevent frequency conflict in the case of adjacent or spatially overlapping radio networks, it is known in the case of a radio network to be newly formed that by intercepting the available frequency channels it is determined which of them are already seized in order on this basis to be able to select a free frequency channel. Newly activated devices are however not able to establish the seizure of a frequency band if no data transmission takes place on this frequency at the time of its activation.
With the radio network and/or method known from DE 199 46 540 A1 mentioned in the introduction, provision is made for this reason to additionally seize the used frequency channel during the pauses between individual data transmissions, for instance by means of a burst signal, in order to signal the seizure of the frequency channel to devices in another radio network. In particular, if data is only transmitted sporadically and/or at large time intervals, this known type of additional seizure of the frequency channel is however associated with a relatively high energy consumption.